The World of Textiles, Cleveland style

I was a guest at the Princeton Rug Society meeting this afternoon, for a power point presentation of images from the textile collection of the Cleveland (Ohio, that is) Museum of Art, created by the member who was just there and spent the day seeking out textiles from the galleries of the museum.  They are interspersed with other artworks, so it was a lot of footwork for her.  Not very practical to take pix of her images, since the flash would be disturbing to the other people, so I'll just aim you here  and suggest you browse a while.  

Great collection, and though a lot of the textiles don't have images, those that do will enlarge if you click, and bring up information about the materials, size, provenance of the piece.

Then the members present had a show and tell of their own pieces, with great expertise on what they are, and generosity in letting people handle items such as a Quebecois child's coat, 19th century, another Canadian piece, a fingerwoven sash made by monks with  amazing fineness of detail, batiks, goldworked and silk woven pieces,

and a section of Asian embroidery for use in women's clothes, an export to the west.  The round piece is backed with Russian trade goods fabric, so you see it back and front.


Although the society is officially about rugs, in fact the membership is interested and knowledgeable in many textile forms, and they collect a wide range of them. As a goldwork embroiderer, if a learner, I was interested in the goldwork on some of the slides and in person, and noticed that there was reverse couching on one goldworked piece, very finely done. 

Great afternoon for textile lovers, and, since the meeting was in the same library as the needlework exhibit I'm taking part in, I happily referred them to that on their way out.   I took pix of our Guild's needlework show, and will be setting them up in then inaugural blogpost of Princeton Embroiderers Guild, our new blog for guild news.  I'll give you a link when that's up and running.